Arête des Cosmiques – such a classic and I had never done it before!

We had a late flight booked so we knew we could get a reasonable day in the mountains, even if we didn’t get up early.

We took a leisurely start and joined the hordes at the lift station. We got to the top at midday, and there were only a few climbers heading towards the Arete de l’Aiguille du Midi. The sun was baking hot and the snow a little slushy, and there was no wind. The climb down wasn’t too bad.

We made our way across below the Aiguille du Midi, passing a tent city – I thought the tents had to come down during the day? – and reached the bottom of the route in 45 minutes. We started up the route with no one else in sight.

Pete on the lovely granite

Laetitia - with tent city in the background

As we approached the abseil there was a slight bottle neck as a prty of three took their time, but they let us pass them shortly afterwards and we continued up to the crux.

Laetitia on the short abseil

The whole route is just so much fun. Not very hard, with a few interesting moves. The crux pitch is a bit of a crack, with one fixed piece of gear and a few strategically placed man made crampon holes which make it much easier. We were lucky we didn’t really get held up by other parties, so we could just enjoy the freedom of climbing together.

We made it up to the top within 2 hours, and as always to the amusement of the tourists who thought we were very heroic. We didn’t like to disillusion them, so we just smiled and behaved like heroes – that was until Pete fell asleep waiting for the lift down!

Pete having a snooze while we waited for the lift down